True Wisdom

“‘Righteousness’ is a social term signifying that people do right by each other as defined by God’s covenants with Israel. In a nutshell ‘righteousness’ means ‘to disadvantage oneself as necessary in order to advantage others,’ and ‘wickedness’ means ‘to disadvantage others in order to advantage oneself.’ A student who takes a reserved book out of the library to get an A, leaving the rest of the class to get a lower grade, is wicked (i.e., a fool). By contrast a student who resists the temptation to check out a rare book from the library so that his or her classmates have the opportunity to read and write an ‘A’ paper, even if it means he gets a lower grade, is righteous (i.e., wise). Righteousness, the disadvantaging of oneself to advantage others, is counterintuitive. Jesus Christ is the supreme example of wisdom according to this definition.”

Bruce K. Waltke, “Fundamentals for Preaching the Book of Proverbs, Part 3,” Bibliotheca Sacra 165 (2008): 261-262.